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Search Strategy................................................................................................................................................ iii

1. Credits.......................................................................................................................................................... 1

2. Table of contents.......................................................................................................................................... 1

3. FOREWORD................................................................................................................................................ 2

4. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................... 3

5. PART ONE: FIRST STEPS.......................................................................................................................... 6

6. PART TWO: WHAT WORKS: TOOLS FOR ALL......................................................................................... 17

7. PART THREE: OTHER TOOLS (HELP YOURSELF).................................................................................. 46

8. PART FOUR: A BRIGHT MARKETING MANIFESTO................................................................................. 60

Bibliography...................................................................................................................................................... 72

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Publication title: Bright Marketing : Why Should People Bother to Buy from You?

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Publication year: 2007

Publication date: 2007

Year:

2007

Publisher: Crimson Business Ltd.

Place of publication: Richmond

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Copyright: Copyright Crimson Business Ltd. 2007

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_______________________________________________________________Document 3 of 8

FOREWORD

Author: Davies, John


Full text: When you attend one of Robert Craven's presentations you know that you are in for an energising and

exciting experience from the moment it begins. He manages to demystify the subject of marketing - something

that is so often overcomplicated - and he gives his authence straightforward and practical tools and techniques

that enable them to make their businesses more successful.

At Barclays, we are delighted to run the Let's Talk... Bright Marketing seminars with Robert. Not least because

he, and the Bright Marketing events, share Barclays' passion for the customer. The feedback from delegates is

always superb. And even more importantly, we know that attendees who go on to apply the Bright Marketing

tools and techniques will rapidly reap the rewards through improved business performance.

At the heart of the Bright Marketing philosophy is a refreshingly simple approach to developing and growing

your business - it shows us all how to go about the critical task of winning more and better customers in a

nononsense style. Free of jargon and focused on 'what can I do differently when I get back to my business?',the Bright Marketing approach is practical, down-to-earth, and, above all, easy to implement. You only need to

sit in a room of enthused and engaged small business owners to see that living a Bright Marketing experience is

infectious. And, crucially, it works.

The fundamental questions that Bright Marketing asks will challenge both those completely new to the subject

and the most experienced marketers. 'Why should people bother to buy from you...?', 'What makes you different

from the rest...?', 'Do you look at your business through the eyes of your customer...?'. All questions that

business owners must think about and answer to have a chance of making their ideas fly.

All businesses, whether large or small, are measured on how well they market and sell their products. . . so a

book and a methodology that gives you simple and practical ways to improve your sales performance and growyour profits is hugely positive for all hard-working and aspirational entrepreneurs.

AuthorAffiliation

John Davi es

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Marketing director

Barclays Local Business


Pages: 7

Number of pages: 1



Year: 2007






Document type: General Information



Copyright:

Copyright Crimson Business Ltd. 2007



_______________________________________________________________Document 4 of 8

INTRODUCTION

Author: Craven, Robert


Abstract: The business that adopts the principles of Bright Marketing becomes known for its deep

understanding/knowledge - and can charge premium prices; it becomes recognized as the first port of call. Thetrick is to know how to make that happen. If you run your own business and want a no-nonsense guide to

getting more customers - with relatively little expenditure) then this is for you.

Full text: Headnote

BRIGHT MARKETING!

Getting ahead of the competition

* Why should people bother to buy from you when they can buy from the competition?

* What makes your business different from the rest?

We live in a worid where everything claims to be better and yet everything seems to be the same. . .

- Bright Marketing argues that in a world full of mediocrity it doesn't take that much to stand out from thecompetition. How do you do that?

Most businesses try to be all things to all people, , .



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- they become seen as a jack-of-all-trades. On the other hand, the business that adopts the principles of Bright

Morketingbecomes known for its deep understanding/knowledge (and can charge premium prices!); it becomes

recognised as the first port of call. The trick is to know how to make that happen.

In a world that celebrates celebrity people have a choice,, ,

- they can buy from the 'me too' also-rans, or they can buy from the market leaders. Whether you trade locally,

regionally, nationally or internationally you can put yourself ahead of the competition.

Most businesses are only expert at the technical side of their job and they don't know how to communicate

effectively with their customers. , .

- meanwhile, customers buy from the company that they believe will do the best job. So, the likelihood is that

the customer will buy from the business that they, the customer, believe is the best. Is that you?

The real problem is that most businesses are too much in love with themselves and what they do...

- and they don't spend enough time looking at their businesses through the eyes of the customer.

You Need To Stand Out From The Rest, But How Do You Do That?

Bright Marketing will show you how to become seen in your field. The book is about branding. . . it is about

positioning. . . it is about entrepreneurship. . . but actually it is about a whole lot more.

A Marketing Book For Professional Marketers?

Yes and no!

Well, mainly no. . . Bright Marketing does not set out to be a standard marketing book or a textbook. It was not

written with any exams or qualifications in mind. However, professional marketers will appreciate its down-to-

earth approach to getting more sales; in fact, we go out of our way to focus on how a business can get more

sales.

In reality we now have, and we welcome, a large following of professional marketers who consider themselves

to be Bright Marketers applying the BM techniques to their workplace or to that of their clients.

So Is It For You?

If you run your own business and want a no-nonsense guide to getting more customers (with relatively littleexpenditure) then this is for you.

If you are helping to grow a business then this is for you.

If you want practical tools to help you get more customers then this is for you!

So What Makes This Book Different From All The Other Marketing And Sales Books?

This book is not based on years of painstaking, but dull, methodical research... it is not based on some clever

clogs theories that only marketing professors can understand.

This book is based on stuff that works for businesses like yours.

And The Workshops?

The book is based on the award-winning Let's Talk. . . Bright Marketing workshops, where we have asked over15,000 business directors and owners to tell us what they wanted to know about marketing. What emerged was

a seminar that gave the delegates the answers they wanted in a form that they could apply to their businesses

that very day.

Do You Have To Attend The Workshop?

No. Absolutely not, but it would be great to see you at one.

The book is a free-standing volume that should be read independently of the workshops. But it does benefit

from the discussion in the workshops. The only prerequisite to reading the book is your enthusiasm and

willingness to seek out better ways to help you to grow your business.

The most important thing to understand about the tools and techniques in the book is that they work; quite

simply, you will make more profit if you apply the Bright Marketing ideas. We've used them ourselves in our own

businesses as well as in those of our clients; we've got stacks of testimonials and references to prove that our

advice and materials will help you to get more customers and to get more profitable customers.



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To find out more about the Bright Marketing seminars and workshops, visit www. brigh t-marke ting, com

How Does This Fit With Robert's Other Books?

Bright Marketing shares my no-nonsense approach to business that was encapsulated in Kick-Start Your

Business and in Customer Is King

Use The Website

A website has been set up, www.bright-marketing.com, to work alongside the book. The website contains

guides, articles, case studies and materials to support you in your quest to get more (and more profitable)

customers and clients for your business. It also contains free bonus materials for readers of the book. The

password is 'bright'.

The Structure Of The Book

Bright Marketing is divided into four parts.

1. First Steps We begin by examining the heart of what marketing is (or rather isn't) and what it means to you.

2. What Works - Tools For All These are the tools that get used by nearly every business we work with - tools

that you can't afford to miss.

3. Other Tools - Help Yourself A selection of tools, some of which you will find incredibly useful to help you to

grow your business (while some may not be so appropriate for your particular business!).

4. A Bright Marketing Manifesto We bring together the BNl 'ology' in a series of Laws, Crunch Questions, and

the Manifesto itself.

Use The Book

Use the book however you want.

Read it from start to finish.

Or just go straight to the techniques that you need for your business.

Scribble in the margin, underline things you want to remember - my only plea is that you do use the book as a

lever to improve your business.

Your business will not change unless you act - action is at the heart of this book. I can only show you the toolsto use; you must use them.

The mere fact that you feel driven to buy the book suggests that you want to make some changes.

'Go For It!'

AuthorAffiliation

Robert Craven

[email protected]

Bath, June 2007

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Craven works with ambitious directors of fast-growing businesses who feel that they could be doingeven better.

The Financial Times describes him as 'the entrepreneurship guru'; Cranfield School of Management says he is

'the dosest thing that growing businesses have to a modern day John Harvey Jones'.

Robert set up the first of several businesses (restaurant, cafe, training company, sound studio) in his final year

at university. He then spent five years running training and consultancy programmes for entrepreneurial

businesses at Warwick Business School. Running his own consultancy since 1998, he is now one of the UK's

best-known and sought-after speakers on entrepreneurship.

He is not full of theoretical rhetoric; he offers practical solutions - tangible business results. Robert's work on

marketing and strategy has been widely published and acted upon by thousands of growing businesses.

His two recent books Kick-Start Your Business and Customer is King, with Forewords by Sir Richard Branson,

are both business best-sellers and have been described as 'truly inspirational' by The Independent.

Robert's track record at helping businesses is very impressive. Add to this his broad experience at board level



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and you will understand how and why he uniquely adds value to all the businesses that he works with.

Alongside his numerous speaking engagements, Robert also does consulting work for, and is personal mentor

to, the leaders of a number of growing businesses in the UK.

Robert runs The Directors' Centre, the award-winning management consultancy company for growing

businesses.

He lives in the countryside near Bath with his wonderful wife, two dogs and two cats - his three fabulous

children have escaped to live their own lives!

For further details, Robert can be contacted at: E: [email protected] W: www.robertcraven.co.uk T: +44

(0)1225 851044

Subject: Entrepreneurs; Marketing; Prices;

Classification: 9520: Small business; 7000: Marketing


Pages:

9-12,166

Number of pages: 5



Year: 2007






Document type: Book






_______________________________________________________________Document 5 of 8

PART ONE: FIRST STEPS



Abstract: The purpose of Part One is to cover the basic ground, the fundamentals that underpin the Bright

Marketing Manifesto (part four). This book has encapsulated the key questions - and more importantly the

answers - in a digestible format. The main themes of the questions and answers come under one of 7 headings,

including: 1. What works? 2. How to communicate? 3. How to focus? 4. How to measure? 5. How to stand out



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from the rest? 6. How to get more sales with no budget? 7. How to make it happen? Marketing is all about

communicating with potential/ existing clients and getting them to buy from you rather than from your

competitors. Part One: The First Steps provides two lessons: 1. You need to know your performance to date to

establish your journey and direction. 2. In order to sort your financial performance, you must sort your marketing

performance first.

Full text: * The FAQs Of Marketing* What Is Marketing?

* Why Should People Bother To Buy From You?

* What Is Your Marketing Strategy?

* Why Doesn't (Traditional) Marketing Work?

* Marketing Effectiveness: How Good Is My Marketing?

* How Am I Doing?

* We begin by examining the heart of what marketing is (or rather isn't) and what it means to you. Delegates at

our workshops keep asking the same basic questions about marketing, the FAQs. Maybe we should call them

the VFAQs (Very Frequently Asked Questions).

We list the key questions and go on to consider what marketing is, why it doesn't (usually) work, and how good

you might be at it.

The purpose of Part One is to cover the basic ground, the fundamentals that underpin the Bright Marketing

Manifesto (part four).

THE FAQS OF MARKETING

The first Bright Marketing seminar took place in mid-2002 and since then the workshop has been delivered over

200 times to approximately 15,000 business owners, managers and directors. Why had they come? What did

they want to know?

Every event has started the same way, asking the question,

'By the end of this session, what do you want to know how to do?'

Having asked the question over two hundred times we now have a pretty good idea of the key marketing issues

that people want sorted. This book has encapsulated the key questions (and more importantly the answers!) in

a digestible format; use it how you see fit.

At its simplest, the main themes that the authences wanted to know the answers to came under one of seven

headings:

* What works?

* How to communicate? How to get heard?

* How to focus? How to target?

* How to measure?* How to stand out from the rest/how to be listened to?

* How to get more sales with no budget?

* How to make it happen?

What you will notice in the chapters of this book is that nothing fits neatly into one heading - most overlap. As a

result I have written chapters in the natural order that subjects were dealt with in the actual workshops.

In the 200 events we spoke to MDs of multinationals as well as owner-managers of smaller businesses and the

same themes just kept coming through to us.

To give you a rough idea of the top questions, they were as follows:

* How do I get into bigger businesses?* What works best?

* What do people buy?

* How can I make people buy from us?



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* How do you get the 'biggest bang for your buck'?

* How do we know how we are doing?

* How can we make more money?

* How much should we invest in marketing?

* If there was only one thing we could do then what should it be?

* How can I sell more?

* How can I get more customers?

* How can I get more profitable customers?

* How can I get my team to understand the marketing plan?

So What? What's Next?

This book will show you the answers to these questions - in other words, how to get more (and better) clients to

buy from you.

WHAT IS MARKETING?

Marketing, to me, is one of those misunderstood words of the business world. Like 'strategy', we use the word

'marketing' all over the place and give it different meanings depending upon our mood and our inclination. No

wonder no-one respects these words or the people who use them a lot.

A Textbook Definition (unhelpful and dull!)

The textbook definition of marketing is

'identifying and satisfying customer needs profitably'

... but this is a very dry and academic definition and not very helpful if you are running a business.

Slightly Better

A better definition might be

'Marketing is about deciding what customers' business you want to win, . . against whom. . . and how. '

So, At Its Core We Can Say...

'Marketing is seeing your business through your customers' eyes. 'Ask Yourself

* What problem does our product or service solve?

__________

Why should people buy from us?

_________

* What benefits are we offering that our competition doesn't offer?

_________

* If we aren't offering additional benefits then why should people buy from us at all?

__________Key Point

Your business leaks messages about itself like radioactivity. It is not possible to not communicate - you always

communicate; everything you do communicates something. So, you should decide what it is that you wish to be

communicating, be clear about who you want to be communicating with... and what the message is that you

want them to receive.

In some senses, marketing equals communication.

Another, Broader, Definition (sounds dull but does the job)...

'Marketing is about systematically selecting how and what you communicate to whom,,, with the purpose of

winning more of the business that you want, '

Regis McKenna...

'Marketing is everything. '

So What?



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I hear you wondering. Well, if most people don't know or can't agree about what marketing is, then why should

we be surprised if most people are so poor at it! So, yes, marketing is everything, and yes, marketing is about

systematically selecting how and what you communicate to whom... with the purpose of winning more of the

business that you want'.

WHY SHOULD PEOPLE BOTHER TO BUY FROM YOU?

At the heart of the Bright Marketing Manifesto is the one-liner 'Why should people bother to buy from you when

they can buy from the competition?'. This sentiment haunts and underpins the whole book.

Stop And Think

Why should people bother to buy from you if you are the same as the competition?

Sorry, I can't think of a single reason! And I certainly can't think of a single reason in a world where your

competition is. . .

Cheaper

Or faster

Or friendlier

Or higher tech

Or whatever!

The Big Question

In fact, this is the big question for banks, building societies, shops, consultants, pubs, almost any business...

Why should people bother to buy from you? 'WSPB2BFY?'

If you can't answer this question then 'do not pass go, do not collect 200'.

Stop And Think

We live in a world of mediocrity - everything claims to be better but actually everything is the same.

We Employ...

Similar people with. . .

Similar qualifications at. . .Similar salaries to use. . .

Similar software on. . .

Similar machines to deal with. . .

Similar customers with similar needs so that we can sell them,

Similar products at. . .

Similar prices to those of our. . .

Similar competitors!

Key Point

In this world of similarity and mediocrity, we only need to be 5% different from the competition to stand out!Be Different Now

I love this quote from Seth Godin...

'Professional service marketing is certainly among the safest I've seen. Because it appears to take no risks, it's

actually quite risky. '

You risk more by obsessing with safety in numbers, by being unremarkable. On your gravestone they can write:

'Here lies another businessman His business did CK, but not great No-one will remember him that well But at

least he looked like everyone else. '

Some Further Thoughts: What Do People Really Buy?

We are all customers and consumers - we all go out and buy products and services for our homes and for our

businesses so it feels bizarre to have to go back to the basics of business and ask 'What do people really buy?'.



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So What?

Do you offer a benefit to your consumer that is greater than the cost?

Fact

Please memorise and inwardly digest the following:

The only products that succeed are those that offer a benefit to consumers. . .

...that is greater than their cost.

Fact

I know that this is obvious... but often we are in the business of (re-)stating the obvious...

People normally buy benefits and not features.

A key problem (particularly for business owners) is that we get so pre-occupied with the features that we have

given our product, we forget why the customer might wish to buy it in the first place!

WHAT IS YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY?

If 'marketing is everything', and 'marketing is about systematically selecting how and what you communicate to

whom... with the purpose of winning more of the business that you want' then how do you do it?

A good starting point, ironically is your end point. If you know what 'success' looks like then it is much easier to

plan a route to get 'there'.

Like any other strategy (another over-used word!), your strategy for marketing is your route map for getting

there. The fundamental question, then, is 'what is your marketing vision?' Write it down. In other words:

Why... which customers... will choose us?

Action Point: Your Marketing Vision

Write down:

1. Your market position (how you compare with the competition) now, and in the future, [eg now we are Number

10 restaurant in the town; in three years we will be Number Two by turnover]

__________

2. Your customer position (how they see you) now, and in the future, [eg now we are the only modern funkyplace in the town, a bit too avant-garde; in three years we will be 'the place to eat']

__________

3. How will you achieve and sustain this new position? [eg delivering a consistent and remarkable customer

experience combined with encouraging word-of-mouth and referral/recommendations - creating a real buzz]

__________

In any business you are trying to create a product offering, or more specifically a brand.

A Brand Is...

A brand can be defined as a combination of the following:

* Signs by which you are known and remembered* A bundle of explicit/implicit promises

* A reflection of personality

* A statement of position.

And... by the time you finish this book, you should have sorted out how and what your brand should be

communicating and to whom.

WHY DOESN'T (TRADITIONAL) MARKETING WORK?

Marketing and marketers are quite rightly under attack. Put simply, traditional marketing behaves like the

emperor's new clothes - everyone points and marvels at how wonderful it is. At the same time, we seem to

invest a lot of time and money in marketing, but without getting the promised returns.

Five Reasons Why 'Normal Marketing' Fails (Especially For Your Business)

We can fire bullets at the 'Marketing Establishment' until the cows come home. This will not help your business

very much. So, let's be specific about the main reasons why marketing fails in your business. The list is simple.



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1) Lack Of Commitment

If you don't really believe in your product, or if you are not consistent and regular in the ways that you promote

it, then the odds are that you will not succeed. Your plans must ensure that you have committed the appropriate

resources and effort to do what it takes to make your product sell.

2) Lack Of A Clear Benefit

You must sell something that people want. So, you have to get close to your customer (or potential customer)

and find out what they really want, and examine what it is that you have to offer. Please don't make things just

because you find them easy or fun to make. Customers do not care about how much fun you've had. They want

to know WIIFM (What's In It Far Met).

3) Poor Positioning

If you look exactly the same as your competitors, and you offer the same benefits at the same price, then why

should customers bother to buy from you? You need clarity about what it is that you offer and why customers

should come to you. This, in turn, will inform you as to how to effectively promote and present yourself.

4) KISS

'Keep It Simple Stupid'! We have an ability to complicate things without realising that simplicity, clarity, and

focus will bring us the profits we seek.

5) Paralysis By Analysis Combined With Dull Thinking

This is normally brought on by attending too many inappropriate marketing courses and reading too many

textbooks aimed at professional marketing departments of large companies (where they can afford to be

mediocre)!

Traditional marketing doesn't work so well nowadays because it is a crude and out-of-date way of behaving. In

the old days there was a direct correlation between advertising spend and increases in sales. This is no longer

the case.

Returns on advertising are falling as a result of simple supply and demand. Too many products are chasing the

attention of time-poor, low-attention consumers through an ever-increasing number of media. The sums justdon't add up anymore.

Key Point

Trading on the old tag lines no longer works. If all your competitors are competing on the strength of the usual

banners (faster, smarter, better value) then why should people bother to buy from you if you are all just the

same?

Now is the time to look at your business and try to make it look different on at least one significant criterion.

One-Liner

If there is a choice between being different and being better, then I'd rather be different. Ideally, I'd rather be

different and the best!What's To Be Done?

Look at your business through the eyes of the customer. Why should they buy from you? It does actually make

sense to separate yourself from the masses rather than run with them.

Are You A Zebra?

Zebras that don't 'run with the pack' get noticed first by their prey - all the members of the herd of zebras look

the same... and safe... when they are running in the herd. If you want to get noticed by your potential customer,

try running Outside the pack'. In the business world getting noticed increases your chances of making a sale.

Homer Simpson On This Very Subject

You know those balls that they put on car antennas so you can find them in the parking lot? Those should be on

every car!'

And In Practice

Jay Abraham in the book Guerrilla Marketing For Consultants discusses how most management consultants



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promote themselves. All their (nigh-on identical) websites are at pains to demonstrate that they:

* Offer value for money, the best price

* Deliver contracts on time using recognised methods and approaches

* Employ well-qualified people, good credentials, experienced

* Are systematic

* Have a history of important clients

* Have exuberant but anonymous testimonials.

Key Point

In most industries there is too much sameness; too much safe differentiation between the various competitors.

Often there is an over-supply of participants, as in the management consultancy industry, where the barriers to

entry are also relatively low.

However, you might stand out as different in the mind of the customer if you have promoted something different,

say, one of the following characteristics:

* A thought leader, a category a prominent public speaking profile

* A published expert, a new-wave thinker

* A list of testimonials from recognised characters

* A real guarantee (money back or payment on results only)

* True innovation or defying conventional wisdom, or even honesty.

Interruption Marketing

Traditional marketing can be seen as 'interruption' marketing. An attempt is made to present your own product

to the consumer when their attention is high (and when they are most vulnerable to your message) . Trains,

cinema, TV and newspaper advertising see effectiveness plummeting as the target authences become immune

to more and more adverts that sell more and more products that seem pretty similar to the rest.

To survive in today's marketplace, you need to do more than simply copy the competition. That is a recipe for

mediocre performance. You won't be remembered as you slip amongst the blur of mediocre providers allproviding a 'much of a muchness'. You have been warned.

Stop And Think

In the old days, you knew when you were the target of an advertising campaign. Progressively the line between

explicit advertising and more subtle promotion has become blurred. 'Product positioning' (buying the rights to a

product being used in a high profile film or TV series) is a more and more common tactic to get one's product

associated with the good and the worthy. Some 'unscrupulous' marketers even pay actors to conspicuously use

and discuss a product in public places to generate a debate and interest.

It is time to figure out how to look different from the rest rather than the same as the rest This is not about

creating cheap gimmicks but it is about offering the clients and customers something that they value and canrelate to.

Fact

You will be the same as the rest if you also try to attract work by celebrating qualities that are the same as your

competitors'.

MARKETING EFFECTVIENESS HOW GOOD IS MY MARKETING?

In the Bright Marketing workshops we use the worksheet below with clients to get them to think through just how

good their marketing effectiveness is.

People regularly score their marketing on how much they have spent on it or how pretty their brochures look, ie

marketing inputs or costs. These criteria seem somewhat superfluous. The very purpose of your marketing is to

get more clients to buy from you. . . or to get your existing clients to stay with you and buy more. So what you

really need to do is measure your marketing effectiveness (and not the inputs or costs).

Key Point



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When evaluating your marketing, please measure its effectiveness - does it deliver the results that you want?

Do not confuse the sizzle with the steak. Measure outputs and results.

Marketing is not an exercise in creating beautifully crafted works of art (unless that will get you more business!).

Marketing is not an intellectually attractive process for stimulating the sensory sensitivities of an artistic director.

Marketing is all about communicating with potential/ existing clients and getting them to buy from you rather

than from your competitors. With that in mind, please score yourself on the worksheet on the next page.

Talk to almost any businessperson that hasjust come out of a standard marketing seminar. They resent the

intellectually fascinating but unearthed, disconnected way that the subject relates to real actions.

Your Marketing Effectiveness

1. We are totally committed to our marketing and sales plans. (If we have them in the first place!)

2. Customers know exactly what they get if they come to us.

3. Customers know why we are different from the rest.

4. We make everything simple and easy to understand for our customers and for ourselves.

5. Decision -making is easy because we are clear about what we are trying to do.

So What?

As most smart-assed marketing books claim, a new paradigm (read 'rhetoric') is required. Well, certainly a way

of looking at finding and satisfying customers that is simple, yet effective, is required!

Problems With Sales And Marketing

You can figure out the help that people seek when you hear the kind of comments that they make when talking

about marketing. The following are pretty standard comments; put ticks against the comments that you have

muttered yourself at some point in the last few months!

* Our pricing is easily matched/ bettered by our competitors who seem to surpass and outflank us. . . '

* Advertising is getting more expensive and less effective; too much time and money is spent on sales

promotion and we don't know how effective it is. . . '

* We're in the wrong business - maybe we should be a web designer 'cos they seem to be making all themoney. . . '

* 'Sales force costs are rising. . . '

* Our so-called innovative projects often don't look much different from those of our competitors. . . '

* A lot is being given away. . . '

* 'We don't have a clear view of the future. . . '

It's time to take action.

You need to see marketing like any other business investment. Evaluate the cost and the subsequent benefit,

that is, measure and evaluate inputs and outputs so that you establish what works most effectively for you.

FactMarketing, as it is commonly presented, is failing to deliver.

HOW AM I DOING?

Before you can talk about what you wish to become, you need to have a clear idea of where you are now... and

what your potential to grow, your capability, is like.

Using something like the 'FiMO' framework, defined below, you can identify strengths and weaknesses in the

business and assess your capability to grow. This framework has now been applied to thousands of businesses

with staggering results. It really tells you where you need to concentrate your efforts. And if you lie to it, you are

simply cheating yourself.

Introduction

When you look at your own business, you need to somehow evaluate what is really going on. A framework is

required to assist you to evaluate your performance (to date). There are plenty of business frameworks and

models available from consultants and business schools. The trouble with them is that they do not always help



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you to create a better business.

This chapter introduces a framework that looks primarily at the business itself. This framework is referred to by

the acronym FiMO.

FiMO is a framework for looking at your business and its performance. It can be used:

* By bankers to evaluate businesses

* By coaches and consultants working with businesses

* To write up business health checks

* To evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your business

* To open up discussion within/with a company to discuss/ agree the 'state of play'.

Only a few businesses have some kind of plan or idea about what they are trying to do, and before you can look

at future plans, you need to know how the business is performing right now.

Measuring Your Company's Performance To Date

When business people are asked,

What measures should be used to assess your company's performance to date?',

then the same list of answers is usually put forward, give or take one or two differences.

The list offered includes measures such as:

* Turnover in units and pounds

* Gross and net profit margin

* Return on capital employed

* Directors' salaries/ owners' drawings

* Liquidity

* Cash-flow

* Stock

* Wages bill, and so forth.

While these financial measures are commendable as a list, to some degree they miss the point. What reallymatters is far more than just the financiis.

Paul, the accountant, would come out with a statement like:

'Finance is the engine of the business without which there would be no reason for the company being in

existence. Cash-flow is the oil that makes the business work, and therefore finance is the only thing that really

matters. '

But still I feel drawn to say,

'To say that finance is the only thing that really matters is poppycock! There's more to understanding the

business' performance than simply the financiis. While I don't dispute the importance of finance, you need to

recognise that it is simply a consequence of two other factors, marketing and operations...'So, why do we always go to the financiis when asked to evaluate performance to date?

There are several reasons.

One reason is that financiis are easy to read and to measure - they somehow give a scientific and objective

feel, after all the numbers can be compared and contrasted.

The second reason is that most business textbooks and studies look at a specific part or function of the

business, for instance, marketing or finance. This approach makes study (and analysis) easier. Unfortunately

the resultant output does not accurately reflect the reality of trying to run a real business.

The third reason lies with how businesses have received their teachings to date. Businesses get their

'knowledge' from a limited number of sources. Unfortunately, the knowledge that is shared with them is often

based on theory and academic models rather than experience and easily applicable tools to really assist you.

For advice about running businesses, the traditional sources of help have been the accountants and the

business support agencies, as well as the banks and universities, who usually have whole departments



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specialising in the use and application of financial measures to businesses. Up until recendy it is almost as if a

conspiracy by these parties has misled business people to think and believe that the financiis are the only

thing that really counts.

Key Point

A more accurate understanding of the business' performance to date is to recognise that financiis only reflect

the marketing and operations performance in the business. Financials are a consequence of marketing and

operations performance.

Introducing The FiMO Framework For Looking At 'Performance To Date'

The framework we use to assess a company's performance to date is known as FiMO.

FiMO stands for:

Finance (Fi)

Marketing (M)

Operations and Production (O)

The FiMO framework gives a 'holistic' view of the business.

Key Point

A specialist in marketing will look for and see marketing issues as the key to a business situation; and an

accountant will look for and see the financial issues. The FiMO framework gives us a much more balanced view

of how the business has performed.

So, you need to recognise that we have three interlocking and overlapping functions, both co-existing and

interdependent. The image to be held in mind is that of a juggler - when all the balls move smoothly then there

are no problems, but if one ball starts to misbehave then chaos ensues.

What We Mean By Marketing And Operations In This Context

Marketing is all about getting potential customers and selling to them. And there are as many measures of

marketing as there are measures of finance.

Operations is all about producing the service or product. It is all about 'doing'. And there are as many measuresof operations as there are of finance.

Most people that run their own business are preoccupied with the making and the selling. In other words,

operations and marketing In fact, most business owners are preoccupied with the O and the M, but don't know

how to do marketing properly and effectively, so they put their effort into the operations while they have

sleepless nights about how they could get more, better customers (marketing).

Without the ability to find customers and sell to them (the marketing), and the actual production or delivery of

the service or product (the operations), then there would be very little to measure in terms of finance!

Action Point

Right now, score your business! Take each heading, and give your business a score out of 10 (where 0 is avery low score and 10 is a very high score) .

How do the scores work?

* Scores of 2 or 3 suggest that there is something seriously wrong

* Scores of 4 or 5 or 6 suggest mediocrity

* Scores of 8 or 9 suggest that you are pretty good if not 'world class'. You might need to find some evidence to

support your case. I would always question and challenge such scores.

In fact, write down the scores in the book, right here, on the page. After all this is a working book not a precious

book to be kept clean. In fact, mark any pages in the book that you find of value.

So, here goes. . . mark your scores out of 10. Remember that this scoring system is subjective; it should be

your gut response. By definition, this process is a little ambiguous and that is because we are interested in the

process, the discussion, about what the scores mean and how they can be improved.

As soon as you enter a number, you (or your colleagues) can argue why the score given was either too high or



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too low.

For instance, if you give yourselves 7 for finance:

* Why haven't you given yourself 8 or 6?

* What would you need to do to improve the score?

* What makes you so sure that you only get a 7?

* Is it 7 and improving, 7 and getting worse, or just stuck at 7?

This is a real process.

* How can you justify your scores?

* Where is the evidence?

* What would you need to do to improve your score?

* Why has your score not been better in the past?

* Why haven't you sorted the underlying issues before?

* Are you really sure that you are measuring appropriately?

* Are you sure that you are measuring effectiveness (financial, marketing and operations effectiveness) rather

than inputs or the activity?

Such a way of scoring immediately suggests how there might be room for improvement.

If you have filled in the FiMO scores for your business then you can see how it gets you to think through and

justify the scores you have given. Try talking this through with a colleague. How would they score your business

under the FiMO headings?

The figure below fleshes out some of the components under each heading.

So What?

The FiMO framework shows you how your business performs. More importandy, it shows you how your

financial performance is dependent on your marketing and operations performance. Finance is usually an

average of your marketing and operations functions, so any improvement in either area will be seen in an

improvement in your finance score - this is a good thing!Most businesses we meet at the Bright Marketing seminars (over 90%!) score their operations performance at 6

or above but score their marketing at 5 or less.

In Conclusion To Part One: The First Steps

Two morals here. First, you need to know your performance to date' ('where are we now?') to establish your

journey and direction. Second, in order to sort your financial performance, you must sort your marketing

performance first.

This part has reminded us why getting your marketing/selling activities in order is a key priority. More

importantly, it will be Bright Marketing techniques (rather than the dull contents of so many marketing textbooks)

that will move our businesses forward.Next, Part Two. What Works: Tools For Al! shows you how to use the key tools in the Bright Marketing toolkit -

these are the ones that most businesses will use to improve their sales and profit performance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Craven works with ambitious directors of fast-growing businesses who feel that they could be doing

even better.

The Financial Times describes him as 'the entrepreneurship guru'; Cranfield School of Management says he is

'the dosest thing that growing businesses have to a modern day John Harvey Jones'.

Robert set up the first of several businesses (restaurant, cafe, training company, sound studio) in his final year

at university. He then spent five years running training and consultancy programmes for entrepreneurial

businesses at Warwick Business School. Running his own consultancy since 1998, he is now one of the UK's

best-known and sought-after speakers on entrepreneurship.

He is not full of theoretical rhetoric; he offers practical solutions - tangible business results. Robert's work on



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marketing and strategy has been widely published and acted upon by thousands of growing businesses.

His two recent books Kick-Start Your Business and Customer is King, with Forewords by Sir Richard Branson,

are both business best-sellers and have been described as 'truly inspirational' by The Independent.

Robert's track record at helping businesses is very impressive. Add to this his broad experience at board level

and you will understand how and why he uniquely adds value to all the businesses that he works with.

Alongside his numerous speaking engagements, Robert also does consulting work for, and is personal mentor

to, the leaders of a number of growing businesses in the UK.

Robert runs The Directors' Centre, the award-winning management consultancy company for growing

businesses.

He lives in the countryside near Bath with his wonderful wife, two dogs and two cats - his three fabulous

children have escaped to live their own lives!

For further details, Robert can be contacted at: E: [email protected] W: www.robertcraven.co.uk T: +44

(0)1225 851044

Subject: Entrepreneurs; Market strategy; Definitions; Guidelines; Customer satisfaction; Market positioning;

Effectiveness;

Classification: 9520: Small business; 7000: Marketing; 9150: Guidelines


Pages: 13-36,166

Number of pages: 25



Year: 2007






Document type: Book, Feature

Document feature: Charts






_______________________________________________________________

Document 6 of 8

PART TWO: WHAT WORKS: TOOLS FOR ALL

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Abstract: Part Two features the tools that get used by nearly every business - tools that you can't afford to miss,

including: 1. seven by three, 2. identifying the most effective sales method, 3. the one-minute intro, 4. the one-

minute brand test, and 5. asking for the business. The Customer Is King approach will make sure that you

design a business that delivers on its promise and delights its customers. The seven points of the customer

experience plan include: 1. Redefine your business as a problem-solver. 2. Understand the real scope of your

business. 3. Get under each customer's skin! 4. Stand out to be outstanding. 5. Develop a strategy to define

your position. 6. Calculate just how much a customer is worth to you, 7. Select your weapons.

Full text: Part Two features the tools that get used by nearly every business we work with - tools that you can't

afford to miss:

* Seven By Three (7x3)

* Identifying the Most Effective Sales Method

* The One-Minute Intro

* One-Minute Brand Test

* Asking For The Business - Three Versions

* The 80:20 Rule - The Law Of The Vital Few For Your Business

* Put Up Prices

* The Expert

* Put It All Together - The 'Customer Is King' Seven-Point Plan

* Customer Experience

* The Best-Kept Secret About Customer Service

By the time you have been through this section you will have covered the answers to the FAQs in The FAQs of

Marketing (page 15). The real skill is in incorporating the appropriate mix of these tools to help your business toimprove its marketing and sales performance so that you run a better and more profitable business.

SEVEN BY THREE (7x3)

In a world of communication overload your message gets lost amongst all the others; you need to repeat your

message many times before it is heard and remembered.

So What?

By midday of any particular day, we have typically seen or heard some 4,000 marketing messages - in

newspapers and magazines, on cartons and packages, on the television and radio. Is it any wonder that most of

our marketing activity seems to fail?

Ries And Trout Said ItThere are too many products, too many companies, and too much marketing noise. '

So How Do You Get Heard In The Midst Of The Noise?

Repetition is the answer and the 'Rule Of Seven By Three'. We need to hear a message, on average, seven

times to remember it! And only one in three messages actually reaches the target (spam-filters block them,

dogs eat them, the postman loses them, the secretary bins them...)

You need to repeat your message at least 21 times if you want it to be seen or heard or more importandy if it is

to be remembered. Most business people give up communicating long before that! And that's why your one-

week radio ad, your mailshot, or your newspaper ads seem to fail to work - you just don't do it for long enough.

Sobering stuff.

And In Practice

I've talked to all the major networking organisations (BNI, BRE, NRG) about how long it takes for new members

to start making a profit from their networking activities. All the organisations agree that it takes roughly five

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months of attending weekly meetings for the new member's marketing message to get successfully

communicated to the others. In other words, the message is put out about 20 times before the other networkers

'get it'. Confirmation of the Rule of Seven By Three - it takes roughly 21 times for people to actually hear your

message.

How often have you actually kept plugging away at a marketing activity or campaign so that you've actually hit

the target some 21 times...?

What would happen if you did?

Fact

Todays marketplace is no longer responsive to the strategies that worked in the past.

IDENTIFYING THE MOST EFFECTIVE SALES METHOD

If you knew what the most effective sales method was then you would use it above others. The problem is that

most people don't know what the most cost-effective sales method is so they don't know which one to use.

The Directors' Centre carried out a simple qualitative survey in Quarter One of 2004 (and repeated it in the first

quarter of 2007) . We asked one question:

'If you could only use one sales method then what would it be?'

The survey comprised a combination of questionnaires, surveys and interviews with a total of 247 directors and

owner-managers from a cross-section of organisations of less than 200 employees. The style of the report was

informal and not highly scientific to satisfy specific client needs - originally to 'confirm or refute findings and

research found elsewhere'.

When asked what was 'the most effective sales method'... small and growing businesses put

* Face-to-face selling, and

* Referrals and customer recommendations

at the top of the list at Number One and Number Two.

Sales representatives from larger businesses also supported these survey findings - price was not the single

most compelling sales feature, although clearly a low, competitive price can help. No, the success of most salesrelationships was the result of relationships and reputation - face-toface relationships which support the

corporate brand communications spread by word-of-mouth - as the old adage goes, 'people buy from people'.

What Was Stopping Some Businesses From Being More Effective At Selling?

The answer came back as a lack of systems that 'test, review and improve' existing sales methods.

Some businesses try to sell things that the customer doesn't want!

Stop And Think

If you can't sell your product then it is for one of two reasons. . . either you've got a rubbish product, or you are

rubbish at marketing and selling.

And the key question, to my mind, is:'Can all businesses improve their sales performance by improving their sales skills, systems and techniques...?'

I think so!

A number of respondents commented on the artificial nature of the question ('If you could only use one sales

method, what would it be?') and that the most powerful sales method was actually a combination of two or three

techniques, eg exhibitions and face-to-face selling and telesales. And we agree with them here as well.

Our purpose was a 'finger in the air' response rather than an in-depth academic study. And now we use the

table below as a starting point, a springboard, to get businesses to think about how they can improve their sales

performance.

The Point Is...

There are entire industries trying to sell us the least effective sales tools (email marketing, direct mail,

exhibitions) while there are no formal industries trying to sell the most effective methods (face-to-face and

recommendation) . We believe their hype and they keep us ignorant of the fact that the cheapest solutions are



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the most effective for most people!

The results of the survey suggest a number of questions:

* Do you know which sales methods are the most effective in your business?

* Do you allocate sales effort in the most effective manner?

* Do you know how much it costs to acquire one new client?

* Do you know the average lifetime value of a new client?

* How much is the average new customer worth to you?

* If the 80/20 rule exists in your business (20% of efforts generate 80% of profits) then is this true for sales

methods (ie 20% of sales methods generate 80% of sales) ? What are you doing about it?

- Do you know who the Top 20% of clients are? Do you treat them differently? Do you know what makes them

different from the rest? Is there a way you could find more clients like them?

- Are you trying to get more revenue from poorperforming clients, the 'trivial many'? (Seems like hard work.) Or

are you trying to get more revenue from high-performing clients, the 'vital few'? (Seems much easier to do.)

- Should you sack 50% of your 'poor' customers and get more (ie better) business from your 'richer' clients?

* Has every part of your sales pipeline /system been measured, tested and systematise d? If not, why not?

Most businesses interviewed believed that they were sales or customer-focused, but in reality, they spent little

of their time systematically reviewing and improving their sales system (s).

Can We Do Better?

Most respondents (85%) agreed that better selling skills and behaviour were necessary to move their

organisation forward. The key issue is whether the organisations (and individuals) are prepared to pay the price

for such activity (ie make the changes required).

Barriers To Being More Effective At Selling

In a nutshell, key barriers are:

* Lack of time, appropriate systems, tools, techniques, or even a complete absence of them!

* Initiative fatigue - some staff are tired of being put through yet another business initiative which is supposed totransform their business

* Lack of desire to make it happen

* A feeling that selling is somehow 'dirty'.

Enablers To Becoming More Effective At Selling

For effective selling to become a fundamental part of how things are done, there needs to be a belief that better

selling techniques will boost sales to the right sort of customers. We expect some combination of the following

to be present to precipitate successful selling behaviour:

* Appropriate skills/ training, tested measurement and delivery systems

* Attitude -A 'can do... \ 'yes', and..., 'blame-free' culture that recognises that success and failure go hand-in-hand - a 'willingness to pay the price'

* Rewards and systems that motivate the individuals concerned

* Employing the right people, adopting the right strategy, and putting it all together so that it really works.

Selling And Training - Can Selling Be Taught?

Certainly, businesses (and individuals) can be coached, nurtured, coaxed and developed to become more

sellingaware. What surprised us in the process of gathering the data was that even those who believe that

selling is a crucial quality have done li tue (or nothing) to systematically assess or nurture positive attitudes

towards the craft. . . or to really understand the needs and behaviour of their target customers.

So...

The following exercise gets you to start to measure and evaluate your marketing investment/performance. You

start to put numbers to your marketing activity (costs, inputs, outputs, benefits); you start to test, monitor, track

and evaluate your different options.



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Action Point

Ask yourself these questions:

* Where do you spend your marketing/sales time and money at the moment?

[eg 80% of time and money spent in conferences and exhibitions]

__________

* Where do you get your best results? [eg referrals and recommendations]

__________

* Where should you spend your time and money? [eg referrals and recommendations]

__________

* What could good marketing and selling skills do for your business? [eg an improvement of 10% in sales]

__________

* So, what are you going to do about it?

__________

And In Practice

A substantial, nationwide accountancy practice invested over 10% of turnover in marketing in its 'Year of The

New Customer' in a bid to gain more and better clients but to no avail. Despite an impressive looking new

website, flashy emails, a significant investment in telesales and a very sexy brochure as well as a series of

newspaper and TV advertisements, there had been little noticeable improvement in the number of new clients

signed up. In fact, the new clients they were getting weren't actually the type of clients that they had been

targeting! Time for a re-think.

After three months with Ii tue real success, the managing partner announced the launch of 'Operation About

Face' - a new initiative with the sole aim of getting all staff out of the office to meet and talk to as many

prospective clients as possible; the real emphasis was on getting to the face-to-face meeting and getting

referrals and recommendations. 'Operation Referral' was also set up and every current client was asked for at

least one referral. The impact of this activity saw new client acquisition rise by 200% - and the cost of new clientacquisition fell from 1,000 to 350.

The new initiative was faster, cheaper and more effective than the traditional ways of marketing to new clients.

As a postscript, it should be noted that they also did a fair amount of work polishing up the way that they

presented themselves and the business.

See also: Chapter on One-Minute Intro (page 49) and Asking for the Business, (page 57).

Postscript To The Research

1 . The results of the survey suggest that the most effective sales methods are of the old-fashioned 'pressing

the flesh' variety. No surprises there!

2. The survey doesn't 'say' anything about what you should do in y our business. It just lists the preferred salesmethod of 247 businesses - for your business there may be a combination of techniques that you find most

effective.

3. The survey doesn't show the interconnection between pre-sales and the sales process. For many, the

exhibitions/ events lead to the face-to-face sales meeting etc.

We knew that the survey's findings were flawed when we put together the results but we still felt that the results

were of value as a starting point to get people to think hard about the return on their investment of time and

money.

The Time-Money Continuum

The survey also confirmed to us that a generalisation existed:

For quick results you need to spend money on advertisements, exhibitions and mailshots.

On the other hand, if you have the time to spend and to be patient, then you can get results with little

expenditure. . . but this method does take time.



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The research tells us something we intuitively know - that the face-to-face and one-to-one approaches to selling

are the most effective... although this might not be the case when you are selling to huge numbers of people.

THE ONE-MINUTE INTRO

Most people are dreadful at introducing their business to others because they can't explain what they do in a

simple, no-nonsense way that the listener can understand. It's time to put an end to this!

Stop And Think

We are particularly bad at introducing our businesses to people or talking to people. In fact I will go further than

that - most of us are ghastly at all this 'networking' stuff that so many people claim to be the new wave of the

future.

The reality is that you almost certainly cannot remember the last five businesspeople you met at a party or at

some event. And the reason you can't remember them is because they were not memorable. Isn't this a sad

indictment on the state of affairs? People spend most of their waking hours flogging their guts out to run a better

business and then you can't even remember them, never mind what their business does.

There is, however a fairly simple way to overcome this.

The Solution

Piecing together your 'One-Minute Intro' or 'Elevator Statement' is a great way to start thinking about what you

are trying to do with the business.

A 'One-Minute Intro' is a succinct explanation of what you and your business do.

Give yourself a few minutes and consider the following questions. You could score yourself out of 10 where 10

is a high score and 0 is a low score.

*How well can you explain what you do to a stranger?

* Do you convince the stranger about your business?

The Point Is...

Most people just open their mouths and out splutters a whole series of indecipherable jargon and gobbledegook

that leaves the listener none the wiser.Your One-Minute Intro should be easily understandable. If you are in doubt about its simplicity, try the '13 year-

old test'. A 13 year-old child should easily understand your statement.

What Did You Call It?

The One-Minute Intro was originally referred to as the elevator statement; it was so called because there was a

story that runs that you get into an elevator (what we call a lift in the UK) and there stands Bill Gates. He

presses the button for the 10th floor and says, 'So, what do you do?'. You have 30 seconds to explain what you

and your business do in a way that is convincing, compelling and memorable.

It has many other names including:

* One-Minute Intro* Elevator speech

* Audio logo

* 30-second pitch

* And a number of combinations of the above!

The Script

There is a formula, a script, to use to create a compelling One-Minute Intro and it goes as follows:

* We work with. . . '

* Who have a problem with. . . '

* What we do is. . . '

* 'So that...'

* Which means. . . '

So step-by-step, here goes...



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'We Work With...'

Be specific about who you work with. You might define who you work with by one of the following:

* Type of business

* Age of business

* Type of person by

- Sex

- Colour

- Creed

- Religion

- Geography

- And so forth.

'Who Have A Problem With...'

Focus on what is wrong for them or what hurts. It is far more powerful. People listen up if you focus on what is

wrong (their hurt) rather than focus on how nice things could be. People hear and respond to negatives better

than they respond to positives.

Talk About :

'. . . who have bad skin '

'. . . who miss their appointments '

'. . . who can get enough customers '

'. . . who can sleep well at night '

Rather Than Talk About:

'. . . who want clear skin '

'... who want to be good time-keepers '

'... who want an effective marketing strategy '

'... who want a good night 's sleep ''What We Do is...'

Explain what it is that you do that resolves the problem:

* 'Test your skin type. . . '

* 'Show you a structured way of managing your time. . . '

* 'Provide a way of doubling your sales. . . '

* 'Give you a simple device that fits on your nose. . . \

Be clear and be simple and use language that is easy to understand. This is not a sales pitch and you are not

trying to prove how clever you are. All you are doing is giving them an easy- to-und erstand explanation of what

you do.'So That...'

Give a simple explanation of the function that the user/ client/ customer gets:

* You can use an appropriate diet and ointments. . . '

* 'Log all your appointments and priorities. . . '

* 'Hit your profit targets. . . '

* 'You can breathe more easily. . .'.

'Which Means That...'

List the benefits:

* 'You get a clean clear complexion. '

* 'You never miss another appointment. '

* 'You get your bonus. '

* 'You get a great night 's sleep. '



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One-Minute Intro

* We work with...

* Who have a problem with...

* What we do is...

* So what...

* Which means...

BENEFITS and PROOFS not FEATURES DIFFERENCE/UNIQUENESS

And In Practice

'I work with Afro-Caribbean ladies. Who have a problem finding the right oils for their hair * What I do is import

specific oils from the West Indies * So that our clients use oils that absolutely suit their hair type * Which means

that they look and feel fantastic when they go on a night out. '

KM, importer of hair products and oils

'I work with the managing directors of fast-growing business * Who are feeling the pains of growth * What we do

is work with them on a oneto-one basis, people who have 'been there and done it' working with people who

want to go there and do it * So that you get no-nonsense solutions to your business problems from people who

have had the arrows in their backs * Which means that you can exceed your targets and have the business and

lifestyle that you want. '

Paul Jobin, The Directors ' Centre

Checklist - One-Minute Intro

Score yourself on the scales below.

Does your One-Minute Intro:

* Sound convincing?

No - a bit - quite a bit - yes

* Explain what your business does?

No - a bit - quite a bit - yes* Roll off the tongue smoothly?


* Make the listener understand what business your business does?


* Pass the '13 year-old test'?


Most of us are lousy at introducing ourselves - so here's a way of doing it properly More importantly the One-

Minute Intro can be used on your website, your brochures, even your business cards.

THE ONE-MINUTE BRAND TESTOne of my favourite parts of the Bright Marketing workshops is what we call the One-Minute Brand Test'. This

simple technique gets you to think about how your business is perceived by others.

'On Your Way Into Coffee...'

Going into the coffee break, delegates are instructed to take one of their business cards (or any other piece of

marketing material that they might have with them, eg brochure, headed notepaper, compliments slip etc). They

hand this to a conference organiser, who then staples the piece of business card/marketing material to a blank

sheet of paper. All the delegates have to look at each others' marketing material and write the first thing that

comes into their head on to the blank sheet of paper that accompanies the marketing material.

So, what you end up with is comments from all the other delegates on the piece of paper that has your business

card/ marketing material attached to it.

The comments are normally one or two words and these observations provide incredibly valuable feedback

about how the viewer/ recipient sees your business. The comments are honest and independent (although they



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may not be from your target customers) .

Below is a sample of comments from a recent workshop.

And In Practice- Example One: Small Accountancy Firm

* What do all the letters stand for?

* Dull

* Boring

* Looks like a funeral directors'

* What are you trying to say?

* You obviously work from a home address

* Why have you got a hotmail address if you are a business. . . what does it say about you?

* A joint fax/phone number makes me think you are a one-man band

* It looks like you've printed it yourself- can't you afford a proper designer and printer or do you just not care

about how professional you do (or don't) look?

* Yuck

And In Practice- Example Two: Printers

* Love the colours

* Great feel to the paper

* I can see exactly what you do

* Very bright

* Remarkable images - made me think

* Personally, I need a pair of sunglasses to look at this

* I'd get you to do my printing

So What!

Your branding can be defined as...

'the messages that leak from you like radioactivity'So, what messages are you trying to convey and to whom? Answer this question and you can then set about

finding ways of communicating those messages.

What Messages Are You Trying To Communicate?

What are you trying to say? It could be any of the following. .

* I am professional

* I am local

* I am the best in my field

* I am experience

* I am high-tech* We are a big organisation

* I am well-qualified

* We do lots of different things

* We only do one thing

* We have official approval

* We are modern

Action Point

* The message that you are trying to communicate is: [eg we are young-minded and modern]

___________

* And you are trying to communicate this to: [eg affluent mums who want unique, high-fashion, designer outfits]

__________

So What?



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When you ask for the business, do it as if you really would like their business! Too often we expect the potential

client to know, as if by osmosis, that we are really keen to work with them but we don't actually tell them so

much in words!

And In Practice

'The reason I've come over to see you today is so that I can tell you how excited we are about the possibility of

working with you. I just feel that we really get on well and there's a great chemistry between us; your company

is just the type and size that we love to work with. So, have I made myself clear that we would relish the

opportunity of working with you?'

Ian, our new health and safety consultant

When you read the words it all looks a bit cheesy but sometimes you do need to find a way of expressing your

enthusiasm.

Asking For The Business #2: Get More Business Script

Here's an easy one for drumming up some more business. Again, it looks a bit over-the-top when you read the

words but it does work if used appropriately.

This script is used with existing customers who already like your business. The three questions can be asked

over coffee or by phone but they really do work.

What do you love about our business?'

-just listen to what they say

What do you hate about our business? What is it that we do that winds you up?'

- again just listen to what they say; do not try to defend anything!

What do we need to do to get more business (or referrals?) from you?'

- and the amazing thing is that they will tell you exactly what you need to do to get more business from them!

As with all the three ways of asking for the business, you do need to have a bit of bottle to ask these questions.

But if you have the courage, and most don't, then you'll watch your opportunities grow before your very eyes!

And In PracticeJayne Seymour wrote to us that as a result of using this technique she gained seven new pieces of work

(valued at over 500,000) for her communications training company. 'This was like taking candy from a baby -

the work was there and I just had to ask for it. But normally I wouldn't have been so bold and so the work would

probably have gone to someone else.'

Asking For The Business #3: The Referral Script

Plenty of people write at great length about referral scripts; so how do you ask for a referral?

You know that the person in front of you knows loads of people. Surely you could sell to one of them, but how

do you ask for the referral so that you (and they) don't feel compromised (and you don't actually embarrass or

upset the person you are talking to) ?First, those of you from professional service firms (lawyers, solicitors, accountants, architects) may feel that

selling is beneath you, unprofessional and generally humiliating. Please remember that some of your

competitors will not feel as precious as you and it will be them that get the business because they have had the

bottle to do it when you haven't. Also, as per usual, you will not die!

Part of the trick is to get the respondent to give the answer 'yes' to every one of your questions. This makes it

easier for them to agree to help (there's a bit of psychology going on here!). You will need to adapt the script to

your business but most successful scripts go roughly as follows. . .

'As you know we are trying to grow our business. '

'Yes.'

You were happy with our product/service when we last provided it to you. '

'Yes.'

You must know lots of people in your industry who could also benefit from our product/service. '



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'Yes.'

It would be rude of me to ask you for their names and then phone them up because that would be like a cold

call and that would hack-off everyone. '

'Yes.'

Well. . . this is what I'd like you to do. Call these people and tell them about what I did for you and tell them that I

will call. This way everyone wins, . . you win because you get brownie points from your colleague, because in

the interests of goodwill (and good networking) you will have recommended someone that you trust. . . your

colleagues win because they get the name of a reliable, tried and trusted, supplier. I win because I get the

opportunity to show my product to a good lead. Everyone wins. So, are you happy to make those calls? Is that

OK?'

'Yes.'

Let me just run through this again, line by line, to explain exactly what is going on. . .

'As you know we are trying to grow our business. '

This is a better way of asking for business than saying, 'We are hungry and haven't had a new customer for

ages. . . '

You were happy with our product/service when we last provided it to you. '

You will only be running through this process with someone who is a fen of your business. And as long as you

have been doing some form of customer satisfaction questionnaires then you will know what people think about

your service. The sad thing is that so many businesses don't actually know what your customers really think as

they don't ask often enough. . . do you know what every one or even some of your customers actually think of

you?

You must know lots of people in your industry who could also benefit from our product/service. '

This is what you are trying to get to. . . you are asking them to (subconsciously) turn on their brain and think

about who they know that could benefit from your product. They are also getting ready for some kind of 'hit'

because this is following a fairly standard scripted sales pitch. . . so you need to retain their confidence andmake sure that their credibility and reputation will not be tarnished or compromised, so the next thing you say is.

. .

It would be rude of me to ask you for their names and then phone them up because that would be like a cold

call and that would hack-off everyone. '

This wins back their confidence in you because you're starting to take away their fear.

Well. . . this is what I'd like you to do. Call these people and tell them about what I did for you and tell them that I

will call. This way everyone wins. . . you win because you get brownie points from your colleague, because in

the interests of goodwill (and good networking) you will have reco

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